Americans win Nobel for studies on sense of smell

Tuesday, October 5, 2004

Matt Moore ~ The Associated Press

STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- American researchers Dr. Richard Axel and Linda B. Buck shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine Monday for their work on the sense of smell -- showing how, for example, a person can smell a lilac in the spring and recall it in the winter.

Their genetic work revealed a family of proteins in the nose that recognizes odors, and they illuminated how the information is transmitted to the brain, letting it perceive and remember smells.

Axel, 58, of Columbia University in New York, shared the $1.3 million prize with Buck, 57, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Both are investigators with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

In 1991, when Buck was working in Axel's lab, they reported finding genes for "receptor" proteins that respond to particular odors. They have since worked independently.

Axel and Buck clarified the intricate biological pathway from the nose to the brain that lets people recognize smells. A whiff of an odor brings a mix of different molecules into the nose, where each molecule activates several odor receptors. This pattern of activation is interpreted by the brain, letting people identify and form memories of about 10,000 different odors, the Nobel Assembly said.

When asked if he had thought about becoming a Nobel laureate, he replied: "No, this is nothing I have been thinking about, I think about my science."

Buck said she did not know she was under consideration.

"People have said things like, 'You should win the Nobel Prize,"' she said. "I feel very honored, of course."

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute said the sense of smell "helps us detect the qualities we regard as positive. A good wine or a sun ripe wild strawberry activates a whole array of odorant receptors."

Academy members said that the decision to give the pair the award was not in light of any medical or commercial payoffs, but rather to honor their exploration of one of the humanity's most profound senses.

For two scientists to single-handedly map one of the major human senses is unique in the history of science, Nobel assembly chairman Goeran Hansson said.

Previous winners included several scientists who first explained different areas of how sight and sound are perceived by humans. Figuring out the human nose took longer than understanding our eyes and ears because it needed modern microbiology and DNA technology to find the microscopic cells and proteins, he said.

"It's pretty amazing to be able to sit here in the 21st century and reward discoveries that explain one of the human senses," Hansson said.

Throughout the 1980s, scientists offered several theories of how people perceive odors, most of which were "ill-founded and wrong," said Sten Grillner, deputy chairman of the assembly. "This system was completely unknown before" Axel's and Buck's discoveries.

The assembly said it's still unclear what the medical and scientific implications of their discoveries will be, but that the work could affect areas as diverse as psychology -- to explain why scents often remind us of childhood -- and cooking, as scent and taste are deeply connected.

"It's possible, I guess, that someone down the road could use this knowledge to cook up something really delicious," Hansson said. "But I think that's pretty far in the future."

Axel and Buck studied mice, which have about 1,000 odor receptor types. People have somewhat fewer.

Last year's medicine prize winners were Briton Sir Peter Mansfield and American Paul C. Lauterbur for discoveries that led to the development of MRI, which is used by doctors to get a detailed look into their patients' bodies.

The award for medicine opens a week of Nobel Prizes that culminates Oct. 11 with the economics prize. The peace prize, the only one bestowed in Oslo, Norway, will be announced Oct. 8. The physics award will be announced today and the chemistry prize will be announced Wednesday in the Swedish capital.

A date for the Nobel Prize in literature has not yet been set by the Swedish Academy, but is likely to be Thursday, Nobel watchers said.

The awards always are presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.